Canada's Simon Marcus fought in China on the WKF world championship card on Jan 31 against China's Fang Bian and lets say that Marcus did not have a good day. It seems as though Joe Schilling exposed a weakness in Simon's boxing defense, mainly due to the way he pressures forwards so hard with his hands down. This fight shows us that Simon has still not changed the mistakes that got him KO'd before, but there is no denying how tough he is still getting up after being knocked down at least 4 times. Of course Fang Bian is super happy and celebrates by flinging himself on the ground and flailing, while Marcus is upset but does little push ups... slightly awkward situations at the end.

There have been a lot of questions from fans over the past few weeks as for what will be in store for K-1 after the tremendous September 14th event in Mallorca, Spain. To the public, things have been quiet on the K-1 Global front, but there has been a lot of movement behind the scenes, with plans being laid out for the next year. I spoke with K-1 Global’s Director of Events & Fighter Acquisition Ned Kuruc about the future of K-1 and it seems like the gears are fully in motion in pushing K-1 into the future.

The first topic was on making the message extremely clear to fans; K-1 is going to change how their shows are run, shifting the emphasis from tournaments to crowning champions across weight divisions and having them defend these belts. “We’re gonna open up our weight divisions, we want to have a clear cut champion in each division,” he stated. “He’ll go on to defend that championship and we’ll get to see who is really the best in each weight class. We’ll have a top ten ranking in every division and fighters will move up the ranks and try to fight the champion.

“We definitely wanted to open up all of the weight classes,” he continued. “For too long K-1 was just two weight classes and this is the solution that we had to help to establish all of these weight classes.”

For many fans, the idea of losing the tournament format will be a loss, as K-1 was established on this idea of annual tournaments to decide the best in the world, but Kuruc assures us that K-1 isn’t done with tournaments. “Is K-1 done with the tournament format? Absolutely not. We want to establish these weight divisions and crown champions, but we still want to run tournaments, just not as often. Maybe they are every two or four years, just not every year like we are all used to.”

If you've been paying attention to kickboxing, you'll probably recognize that 2014 has been a strange year for the sport. We started things off with GLORY as the clear #1 promotion in the world, with the top talents, biggest events and the most promise. As we enter into 2015 things are a bit more muddy and confusing. In fact, they are a lot more confusing.

GLORY 19 is in February, featuring Rico Verhoeven vs. Errol Zimmerman for the GLORY Heavyweight Championship, but to say that things seem to be in disarray in the GLORY camp is an understatement. The postponement of the show raised a lot of eyebrows and now we are seeing more and more GLORY contracted fighters taking fights somewhere else, or, like Joe Valtellini, petitioning for a shot at the UFC against CM Punk. I wouldn't count GLORY out just yet, but at the same time, if we look at the upcoming Kunlun and Wu Lei Feng cards in China, it's hard not to notice the sheer amount of GLORY talent on those cards.

This is kind of revealing. In addition to that, on K-1's USA vs. China event happening in China on January 1st the #1 contender for GLORY's Featherweight Championship, Gabriel Varga, will be fighting with GLORY's blessing. K-1 also announced a huge partnership with some of the biggest networks in China for ten live events in 2015. While it isn't clear if K-1 will be making big money from that just yet, the potential viewership for them is out-of-this-world.

As of right now it is looking like China is making huge moves to be the new home of kickboxing and could potentially be the "new" Japan, possibly even ushering in a boom period. We'll just have to wait and see.

The Kun Lun 7 fight card in China was quite a strange event. First of all the music, seems they had their own song made which they played about 100 times during the show, now I can't stop saying "KUN LUN FIGHTS!" Secondly the results, lots of upsets and no finishes, every fight was a decision, and leaving your fight in the Chinese judges hands is the last thing you want to do. Also there was supposed to be a female MMA fight and I have no idea what happened but they both got in the ring, spoke on the mic, cried, hugged and left the ring without fighting. (wish I could understand Chinese)

Since K-1's event last December in China there has been a lot of hushed talk about the future of K-1 in China. The year 2014 has been a lot better to K-1 than other years and there have been a lot of deals talked about that could possibly make K-1 not only a major player in China, but huge in China. From what we've seen, K-1 has been training referees, judges and other officials on top of lending a hand to train fighters in China over the last year and on January 1st K-1 will make their return to China with a huge USA vs. China event.

It'll take place in Golden Eagle Culture City, Changsua, China and as I stated before, the theme will be USA vs. China. While we don't know all of the names just yet, we have heard that Kevin Ross has signed to be the Team Captain of Team USA and will be fighting, which is pretty big news considering that Ross was being courted by K-1 years ago and GLORY last year only for nothing to come of it. We've also been told that Canadian Gabriel Varga is scheduled to appear on the card, which is interesting considering there was talk of him competing for GLORY's Featherweight Championship soon.

We've been touting Canada as one of the hidden gems of the Muay Thai world for quite a while now, with the shows that happen in the hockey-loving, seal-clubbing neighbor to the north putting on more and more quality events. On November 25th it will be no difference, as this time Canadian promoter Sport Muay Thai Fighting Championships will promote an event dubbed "Canada vs. China."

The world of K-1 is a strange one recently, with lots of rumors swirling around about the future of the company and the future of the shows. The most pressing matter is the K-1 World Grand Prix FInal 16, which is just a few weeks away. The most recent rumor was that the arena was not booked yet and the show was in doubt of even happening. It's Showtime issued a press release reporting on Badr Hari's retirement, but also that the K-1 World Grand Prix Final 16 that Simon Rutz was helping out with might not happen if FEG's debts to It's Showtime were not paid. It makes sense with the amount of fighters being sent to the show to help fulfill their It's Showtime contracts.

By the looks of it, the doubts of the arena being booked are possibly null and void. There has been a seating chart floating around as well as ticket prices within China, while they haven't been posted on K-1's main site yet nor on the Nanjing Arena's site. FEG personnel has also been active recently in contacting fighters and management about the upcoming event, with no signs of the event not happening. There is also a video advertisement that has been airing on Chinese television (credit to Rian for the find).

There is also a strong rumor that there could be a big shake-up within K-1's organization this week, it isn't clear if this is the big "sale" that has been rumored for most of the summer or a possible big investor jumping aboard to help out. If things pan out as rumored, we will know by mid-week what is happening with K-1, and it would not be a surprise if K-1 received another big boost of funds, a new possible owner or some internal shakeups that have been straightening things out.

It's kind of funny how a fighter like Buakaw can not be in the news for months and months and then he'll be practically unavoidable. For right now Buakaw's relationship with MAX Muay Thai seems to be benefiting him as they are keeping his name out there, now that he can actually fight for them and not just participate in exhibition bouts. This is probably a pretty good thing, right? Especially at this stage in Buakaw's career.

Buakaw Has an Opponent at MAX Muay Thai 3

Yes, we knew that Buakaw would be fighting at MAX Muay Thai 3 in China on August 10th, but we weren't sure who it would be against. Now, thanks to a Facebook update from MAX, we know that he'll be fighting against Chinese fighter Dong Wenfei. Wenfei is a Sanda fighter who mainly fights in Kickboxing rules, but Buakaw is not a stranger to those rules, either. One of Weifei's biggest fights was a loss against Vuyisile Colossa, who is probably best known for fighting for ONE FC now. He's also fought Albert Kraus, Big Ben, Aikipracha and more, although he hasn't beaten any of those bigger names.

This will be a good tune-up fight for Buakaw, at least. MAX also announced some other fights for the card, including Aikpracha vs. Jordan Watson and Khem vs. Maiki Karatanasis.

New Buakaw Documentary

Because you can't get enough Buakaw, there is a new documentary that has been released on him that has been out for about a month now called Boxer, Legend, Legacy. It can be rented on Vimeo for $7.

Kun Lun Fight 7 will be taking place today in china a few hours from now, the card includes Andy Souwer, Chris Ngimbi, and Aikpracha Meenayothin to name a few. This card is part of a 70kg K-! rules tournament that takes place over multiple cards throughout the year. There should be a Live Stream Here OR HERE.